This book explores the year 1971, when two exhibitions opened that brought modernist painting and sculpture into the burning heart of United States cultural politics: Contemporary Black Artists in ...
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This book explores the year 1971, when two exhibitions opened that brought modernist painting and sculpture into the burning heart of United States cultural politics: Contemporary Black Artists in America, at the Whitney Museum of American Art, and The DeLuxe Show, a racially integrated abstract art exhibition presented in a renovated movie theater in a Houston ghetto. The book looks at many black artists' desire to gain freedom from overt racial representation, as well as their efforts—and those of their advocates—to further that aim through public exhibition. Amid calls to define a “black aesthetic,” these experiments with modernist art prioritized cultural interaction and instability. Contemporary Black Artists in America highlighted abstraction as a stance against normative approaches, while The DeLuxe Show positioned abstraction in a center of urban blight. The importance of these experiments, the book argues, came partly from color's special status as a cultural symbol and partly from investigations of color already under way in late modern art and criticism. With their supporters, black modernists—among them Peter Bradley, Frederick Eversley, Alvin Loving, Raymond Saunders, and Alma Thomas—rose above the demand to represent or be represented, compromising nothing in their appeals for interracial collaboration and, above all, responding with optimism rather than cynicism to the surrounding culture's preoccupation with color.Less

1971 : A Year in the Life of Color

Darby English

Published in print: 2016-12-20

This book explores the year 1971, when two exhibitions opened that brought modernist painting and sculpture into the burning heart of United States cultural politics: Contemporary Black Artists in America, at the Whitney Museum of American Art, and The DeLuxe Show, a racially integrated abstract art exhibition presented in a renovated movie theater in a Houston ghetto. The book looks at many black artists' desire to gain freedom from overt racial representation, as well as their efforts—and those of their advocates—to further that aim through public exhibition. Amid calls to define a “black aesthetic,” these experiments with modernist art prioritized cultural interaction and instability. Contemporary Black Artists in America highlighted abstraction as a stance against normative approaches, while The DeLuxe Show positioned abstraction in a center of urban blight. The importance of these experiments, the book argues, came partly from color's special status as a cultural symbol and partly from investigations of color already under way in late modern art and criticism. With their supporters, black modernists—among them Peter Bradley, Frederick Eversley, Alvin Loving, Raymond Saunders, and Alma Thomas—rose above the demand to represent or be represented, compromising nothing in their appeals for interracial collaboration and, above all, responding with optimism rather than cynicism to the surrounding culture's preoccupation with color.

The rich variety of essays in Abject Visions: Powers of Horror in Art and Visual Culture demonstrate that abjection as a concept continues to hold great value as an aid to cultural understanding and ...
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The rich variety of essays in Abject Visions: Powers of Horror in Art and Visual Culture demonstrate that abjection as a concept continues to hold great value as an aid to cultural understanding and a prompt to critical reflection. They communicate the enduring power and relevance of the abject by explaining how it conveys ideas about aesthetic, social and moral conventions with regards to representation and viewing. Theories of the abject are key to understanding the contemporary. This is because abject art and literature are not bound to a particular period or geographical location. They adapt to reflect changing times and contexts. The essays in this volume cumulatively demonstrate that abjection is not singular but plural and multiform. In their chosen themes and artists, the contributors draw on the ideas of Georges Bataille and Julia Kristeva, and others such as Judith Butler, Hal Foster and Rosalind Krauss, as part of their approach to extending current ways of conceiving abjection. The majority of the essays focus on the visual arts although there are also considerations of how attending to the abject can inform readings of film, theatre and literature, a fact which attests to its interdisciplinary relevance.Less

Abject Visions : Powers of Horror in Art and Visual Culture

Published in print: 2016-07-01

The rich variety of essays in Abject Visions: Powers of Horror in Art and Visual Culture demonstrate that abjection as a concept continues to hold great value as an aid to cultural understanding and a prompt to critical reflection. They communicate the enduring power and relevance of the abject by explaining how it conveys ideas about aesthetic, social and moral conventions with regards to representation and viewing. Theories of the abject are key to understanding the contemporary. This is because abject art and literature are not bound to a particular period or geographical location. They adapt to reflect changing times and contexts. The essays in this volume cumulatively demonstrate that abjection is not singular but plural and multiform. In their chosen themes and artists, the contributors draw on the ideas of Georges Bataille and Julia Kristeva, and others such as Judith Butler, Hal Foster and Rosalind Krauss, as part of their approach to extending current ways of conceiving abjection. The majority of the essays focus on the visual arts although there are also considerations of how attending to the abject can inform readings of film, theatre and literature, a fact which attests to its interdisciplinary relevance.

The first in the four-part series, this book charts the social, cultural, and political expression of clothing as seen on the street and in museums, in films and literature, and in advertisements and ...
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The first in the four-part series, this book charts the social, cultural, and political expression of clothing as seen on the street and in museums, in films and literature, and in advertisements and magazines. The book features a close-up focus on accessories—the shoe, the hat, the necklace—intimately connected to the body. The chapters here offer new theoretical and historical takes on the role of clothing, dress, and accessories in the construction of the modern subject. The book offers array of ideas about the modern body and the ways in which we dress it. From perspectives on the “model body” to Sonia Delaunay’s designs, from Fascist-era Spanish women’s prescribed ways of dressing to Futurist vests, from Barbara Stanwyck’s anklet to Salvatore Ferragamo’s sandals, from a poet’s tiara to a worker’s cap, from the scarlet letter to the yellow star: this book imparts startling insights into how much the most modest accessory might reveal.Less

Accessorizing the Body : Habits of Being I

Published in print: 2011-07-06

The first in the four-part series, this book charts the social, cultural, and political expression of clothing as seen on the street and in museums, in films and literature, and in advertisements and magazines. The book features a close-up focus on accessories—the shoe, the hat, the necklace—intimately connected to the body. The chapters here offer new theoretical and historical takes on the role of clothing, dress, and accessories in the construction of the modern subject. The book offers array of ideas about the modern body and the ways in which we dress it. From perspectives on the “model body” to Sonia Delaunay’s designs, from Fascist-era Spanish women’s prescribed ways of dressing to Futurist vests, from Barbara Stanwyck’s anklet to Salvatore Ferragamo’s sandals, from a poet’s tiara to a worker’s cap, from the scarlet letter to the yellow star: this book imparts startling insights into how much the most modest accessory might reveal.

This book provides a philosophical and historical account of early photography in India that focuses on how aesthetic experiments in colonial photography changed the nature of perception. Considering ...
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This book provides a philosophical and historical account of early photography in India that focuses on how aesthetic experiments in colonial photography changed the nature of perception. Considering photographs from the Sepoy Revolt of 1857 along with landscape, portraiture, and famine photography, this book explores larger issues of truth, memory, and embodiment. This book scrutinizes the colonial context to understand the production of sense itself, proposing a new theory of interpreting the historical difference of aesthetic forms. In rereading colonial photographic images, it shows how the histories of colonialism became aesthetically, mimetically, and perceptually generative. It suggests that photography arrived in India not only as a technology of the colonial state but also as an instrument that eventually extended and transformed sight for photographers and the body politic, both British and Indian.Less

Afterimage of Empire : Photography in Nineteenth-Century India

Zahid R. Chaudhary

Published in print: 2012-02-01

This book provides a philosophical and historical account of early photography in India that focuses on how aesthetic experiments in colonial photography changed the nature of perception. Considering photographs from the Sepoy Revolt of 1857 along with landscape, portraiture, and famine photography, this book explores larger issues of truth, memory, and embodiment. This book scrutinizes the colonial context to understand the production of sense itself, proposing a new theory of interpreting the historical difference of aesthetic forms. In rereading colonial photographic images, it shows how the histories of colonialism became aesthetically, mimetically, and perceptually generative. It suggests that photography arrived in India not only as a technology of the colonial state but also as an instrument that eventually extended and transformed sight for photographers and the body politic, both British and Indian.

Art historians have long looked to letters to secure biographical information, affirm patronage patterns, and establish the identity of an artist as a modern, self-aware individual. But letters are ...
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Art historians have long looked to letters to secure biographical information, affirm patronage patterns, and establish the identity of an artist as a modern, self-aware individual. But letters are also objects that endure episodes of travel, and are sometimes rerouted to reach readerships that far exceed the scope of their initial intent. As agents of communication, letters are uniquely poised to provide analogies for how works of art address their audiences. In a period before the establishment of a reliable public postal system, handwritten correspondences faced interception and delay. The printing press threatened to expose intimate exchanges, disturbing relationships of privacy to publicity. These risks sharpened during the volatile years of the Reformation. Summoning evidence of the complicated travel patterns of sixteenth-century missives, Brisman argues that uncertainties surrounding the sending and receiving of letters shaped how Germany’s most famous artist conceived of the communicative efficacies of the work of art. Albrecht Dürer’s success was due in large part, she argues, to his development of pictorial strategies that lure the mind of the distanced beholder. Balancing intimacy with publicity and immediacy with delay, Dürer’s images mimic the letter’s ability to connect author and recipient through dialectics of advertisement and concealment.Less

Albrecht Dürer and the Epistolary Mode of Address

Shira Brisman

Published in print: 2017-01-20

Art historians have long looked to letters to secure biographical information, affirm patronage patterns, and establish the identity of an artist as a modern, self-aware individual. But letters are also objects that endure episodes of travel, and are sometimes rerouted to reach readerships that far exceed the scope of their initial intent. As agents of communication, letters are uniquely poised to provide analogies for how works of art address their audiences. In a period before the establishment of a reliable public postal system, handwritten correspondences faced interception and delay. The printing press threatened to expose intimate exchanges, disturbing relationships of privacy to publicity. These risks sharpened during the volatile years of the Reformation. Summoning evidence of the complicated travel patterns of sixteenth-century missives, Brisman argues that uncertainties surrounding the sending and receiving of letters shaped how Germany’s most famous artist conceived of the communicative efficacies of the work of art. Albrecht Dürer’s success was due in large part, she argues, to his development of pictorial strategies that lure the mind of the distanced beholder. Balancing intimacy with publicity and immediacy with delay, Dürer’s images mimic the letter’s ability to connect author and recipient through dialectics of advertisement and concealment.

This book proposes a new reading of contemporary art between 1958 and 2009 by sketching out a trajectory of ‘precarious’ art practices. Such practices risk being dismissed as ‘almost nothing’ because ...
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This book proposes a new reading of contemporary art between 1958 and 2009 by sketching out a trajectory of ‘precarious’ art practices. Such practices risk being dismissed as ‘almost nothing’ because they look like trash about to be thrown out, because they present objects and events that are so commonplace as to be confused with our ordinary surroundings, or because they are fleeting gestures that vanish into the fabric of everyday life. What is the status of such fragile, nearly invisible, artworks? In what ways do they engage with the precarious modes of existence that have emerged and evolved in the socio-economic context of an increasingly globalised capitalism?
Works discussed in this study range from Allan Kaprow’s assemblages and happenings, Fluxus event scores and Hélio Oiticica’s wearable Parangolé capes in the 1960s, to Thomas Hirschhorn’s sprawling environments and participatory projects, Francis Alÿs’s filmed performances and Gabriel Orozco’s objects and photographs in the 1990s. Significant similarities among these different practices will be drawn out, while crucial shifts will be outlined in the evolution of this trajectory from the early 1960s to the turn of the twenty-first century.
This book will give students and amateurs of contemporary art and culture new insights into the radical specificities of these practices, by situating them within an original set of historical and critical issues. In particular, this study addresses essential questions such as the art object’s ‘dematerialisation’, relations between art and everyday life, including the three fields of work, labour and action first outlined by Hannah Arendt in 1958.Less

Almost Nothing : Observations on precarious practices in contemporary art

Anna Dezeuze

Published in print: 2017-01-01

This book proposes a new reading of contemporary art between 1958 and 2009 by sketching out a trajectory of ‘precarious’ art practices. Such practices risk being dismissed as ‘almost nothing’ because they look like trash about to be thrown out, because they present objects and events that are so commonplace as to be confused with our ordinary surroundings, or because they are fleeting gestures that vanish into the fabric of everyday life. What is the status of such fragile, nearly invisible, artworks? In what ways do they engage with the precarious modes of existence that have emerged and evolved in the socio-economic context of an increasingly globalised capitalism?
Works discussed in this study range from Allan Kaprow’s assemblages and happenings, Fluxus event scores and Hélio Oiticica’s wearable Parangolé capes in the 1960s, to Thomas Hirschhorn’s sprawling environments and participatory projects, Francis Alÿs’s filmed performances and Gabriel Orozco’s objects and photographs in the 1990s. Significant similarities among these different practices will be drawn out, while crucial shifts will be outlined in the evolution of this trajectory from the early 1960s to the turn of the twenty-first century.
This book will give students and amateurs of contemporary art and culture new insights into the radical specificities of these practices, by situating them within an original set of historical and critical issues. In particular, this study addresses essential questions such as the art object’s ‘dematerialisation’, relations between art and everyday life, including the three fields of work, labour and action first outlined by Hannah Arendt in 1958.

This book shows that anime is far more than a style of Japanese animation. Beyond its immediate form of cartooning, anime is also a unique mode of cultural production and consumption that led to the ...
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This book shows that anime is far more than a style of Japanese animation. Beyond its immediate form of cartooning, anime is also a unique mode of cultural production and consumption that led to the phenomenon that is today called “media mix” in Japan and “convergence” in the West. According to the book, both anime and the media mix were ignited on January 1, 1963, when Astro Boy hit Japanese TV screens for the first time. Sponsored by a chocolate manufacturer with savvy marketing skills, Astro Boy quickly became a cultural icon in Japan. He was the poster boy (or, in his case, “sticker boy”) both for Meiji Seika’s chocolates and for what could happen when a goggle-eyed cartoon child fell into the eager clutches of creative marketers. It was only a short step, Steinberg makes clear, from Astro Boy to Pokémon and beyond. The book traces the cultural genealogy that spawned Astro Boy to the transformations of Japanese media culture that followed—and forward to the even more profound developments in global capitalism supported by the circulation of characters like Doraemon, Hello Kitty, and SuzumiyaHaruhi. It details how convergence was sparked by anime, with its astoundingly broad merchandising of images and its franchising across media and commodities. It also explains, for the first time, how the rise of anime cannot be understood properly—historically, economically, and culturally—without grasping the integral role that the media mix played from the start.Less

Anime's Media Mix : Franchising Toys and Characters in Japan

Marc Steinberg

Published in print: 2012-03-01

This book shows that anime is far more than a style of Japanese animation. Beyond its immediate form of cartooning, anime is also a unique mode of cultural production and consumption that led to the phenomenon that is today called “media mix” in Japan and “convergence” in the West. According to the book, both anime and the media mix were ignited on January 1, 1963, when Astro Boy hit Japanese TV screens for the first time. Sponsored by a chocolate manufacturer with savvy marketing skills, Astro Boy quickly became a cultural icon in Japan. He was the poster boy (or, in his case, “sticker boy”) both for Meiji Seika’s chocolates and for what could happen when a goggle-eyed cartoon child fell into the eager clutches of creative marketers. It was only a short step, Steinberg makes clear, from Astro Boy to Pokémon and beyond. The book traces the cultural genealogy that spawned Astro Boy to the transformations of Japanese media culture that followed—and forward to the even more profound developments in global capitalism supported by the circulation of characters like Doraemon, Hello Kitty, and SuzumiyaHaruhi. It details how convergence was sparked by anime, with its astoundingly broad merchandising of images and its franchising across media and commodities. It also explains, for the first time, how the rise of anime cannot be understood properly—historically, economically, and culturally—without grasping the integral role that the media mix played from the start.

Contrary to critics who have called it the “undecade,” the 1970s were a time of risky, innovative art—and nowhere more so than in Britain, where the forces of feminism and labor politics merged in a ...
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Contrary to critics who have called it the “undecade,” the 1970s were a time of risky, innovative art—and nowhere more so than in Britain, where the forces of feminism and labor politics merged in a radical new aesthetic. In Art Labor, Sex Politics Siona Wilson investigates the charged relationship of sex and labor politics as it played out in the making of feminist art in 1970s Britain. Her sustained exploration of works of experimental film, installation, performance, and photography maps the intersection of feminist and leftist projects in the artistic practices of this heady period. Collective practice, grassroots activism, and iconoclastic challenges to society’s sexual norms are all fundamental elements of this theoretically informed history. The book provides fresh assessments of key feminist figures and introduces readers to less widely known artists such as Jo Spence and controversial groups like COUM Transmissions. Wilson’s interpretations of two of the best-known (and infamous) exhibitions of feminist art—Mary Kelly’s Post-Partum Document and COUM Transmissions’ Prostitution—supply a historical context that reveals these works anew. Together these analyses demonstrate that feminist attention to sexual difference, sex, and psychic formation reconfigures received categories of labor and politics. How—and how much—do sexual politics transform our approach to aesthetic debates? What effect do the tropes of sexual difference and labor have on the conception of the political within cultural practice? These questions animate Art Labor, Sex Politics as it illuminates an intense and influential decade of intellectual and artistic experimentation.Less

Siona Wilson

Published in print: 2015-02-01

Contrary to critics who have called it the “undecade,” the 1970s were a time of risky, innovative art—and nowhere more so than in Britain, where the forces of feminism and labor politics merged in a radical new aesthetic. In Art Labor, Sex Politics Siona Wilson investigates the charged relationship of sex and labor politics as it played out in the making of feminist art in 1970s Britain. Her sustained exploration of works of experimental film, installation, performance, and photography maps the intersection of feminist and leftist projects in the artistic practices of this heady period. Collective practice, grassroots activism, and iconoclastic challenges to society’s sexual norms are all fundamental elements of this theoretically informed history. The book provides fresh assessments of key feminist figures and introduces readers to less widely known artists such as Jo Spence and controversial groups like COUM Transmissions. Wilson’s interpretations of two of the best-known (and infamous) exhibitions of feminist art—Mary Kelly’s Post-Partum Document and COUM Transmissions’ Prostitution—supply a historical context that reveals these works anew. Together these analyses demonstrate that feminist attention to sexual difference, sex, and psychic formation reconfigures received categories of labor and politics. How—and how much—do sexual politics transform our approach to aesthetic debates? What effect do the tropes of sexual difference and labor have on the conception of the political within cultural practice? These questions animate Art Labor, Sex Politics as it illuminates an intense and influential decade of intellectual and artistic experimentation.

Delving into the intersections between artistic images and philosophical knowledge in Europe from the late sixteenth to the early eighteenth centuries, this book shows that the making and study of ...
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Delving into the intersections between artistic images and philosophical knowledge in Europe from the late sixteenth to the early eighteenth centuries, this book shows that the making and study of visual art functioned as important methods of philosophical thinking and instruction. From frontispieces of books to monumental prints created by philosophers in collaboration with renowned artists, the book examines visual representations of philosophy and overturns prevailing assumptions about the limited function of the visual in European intellectual history. Rather than merely illustrating already existing philosophical concepts, visual images generated new knowledge for both Aristotelian thinkers and anti-Aristotelians, such as Descartes and Hobbes. Printmaking and drawing played a decisive role in discoveries that led to a move away from the authority of Aristotle in the seventeenth century. This book interprets visual art from printed books, student lecture notebooks, alba amicorum (friendship albums), broadsides, and paintings, and examines the work of such artists as Pietro Testa, Léonard Gaultier, Abraham Bosse, Dürer, and Rembrandt. In particular, it focuses on the rise and decline of the ‘plural image’, a genre that was popular among early modern philosophers. Plural images brought multiple images together on the same page, often in order to visualize systems of logic, metaphysics, natural philosophy, or moral philosophy. The book reveals the essential connections between visual commentary and philosophical thought.Less

The Art of Philosophy : Visual Thinking in Europe from the Late Renaissance to the Early Enlightenment

Susanna Berger

Published in print: 2017-02-28

Delving into the intersections between artistic images and philosophical knowledge in Europe from the late sixteenth to the early eighteenth centuries, this book shows that the making and study of visual art functioned as important methods of philosophical thinking and instruction. From frontispieces of books to monumental prints created by philosophers in collaboration with renowned artists, the book examines visual representations of philosophy and overturns prevailing assumptions about the limited function of the visual in European intellectual history. Rather than merely illustrating already existing philosophical concepts, visual images generated new knowledge for both Aristotelian thinkers and anti-Aristotelians, such as Descartes and Hobbes. Printmaking and drawing played a decisive role in discoveries that led to a move away from the authority of Aristotle in the seventeenth century. This book interprets visual art from printed books, student lecture notebooks, alba amicorum (friendship albums), broadsides, and paintings, and examines the work of such artists as Pietro Testa, Léonard Gaultier, Abraham Bosse, Dürer, and Rembrandt. In particular, it focuses on the rise and decline of the ‘plural image’, a genre that was popular among early modern philosophers. Plural images brought multiple images together on the same page, often in order to visualize systems of logic, metaphysics, natural philosophy, or moral philosophy. The book reveals the essential connections between visual commentary and philosophical thought.

One thinks of the arts in Nazi Germany as struggling in an oppressive system, yet evidence has repeatedly shown that conditions were far more favorable than we assume. Potter conducts a ...
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One thinks of the arts in Nazi Germany as struggling in an oppressive system, yet evidence has repeatedly shown that conditions were far more favorable than we assume. Potter conducts a historiography of Nazi arts, examining writings from the last seven decades to demonstrate how historical, moral, and intellectual conditions have sustained a distorted characterization of cultural life in the Third Reich. Showing how past research has revealed the decentralized nature of Nazi arts policies, Potter argues that the insulation of academic disciplines allowed outdated presumptions about Nazi micromanagement of the arts to persist. German exile experiences in the 1930s first inspired these notions, and they gained currency during the occupation of Germany (as careers and trends from the Third Reich continued despite implications of the “Zero Hour”) and throughout the Cold War (as direct comparisons of Nazi and Soviet repression gained momentum). The first histories of Nazi arts, which appeared in the late 1940s, reflected these immediate concerns, but over the next decades, arts scholarship failed to benefit from debates that problematized concepts of totalitarianism, intentionalism, and fascism. They also adhered to explicit definitions of modernism that sustained a narrative of Nazi antimodernism comparable to that of Stalin. The end of the Cold War spawned new comparisons between Nazi Germany and East Germany, but recent considerations of popular culture, economics, and global conditions in the 1930s and 1940s can offer a deeper understanding of the similarities and differences between culture in Nazi Germany and the rest of the industrial world.Less

Art of Suppression : Confronting the Nazi Past in Histories of the Visual and Performing Arts

Pamela M. Potter

Published in print: 2016-06-28

One thinks of the arts in Nazi Germany as struggling in an oppressive system, yet evidence has repeatedly shown that conditions were far more favorable than we assume. Potter conducts a historiography of Nazi arts, examining writings from the last seven decades to demonstrate how historical, moral, and intellectual conditions have sustained a distorted characterization of cultural life in the Third Reich. Showing how past research has revealed the decentralized nature of Nazi arts policies, Potter argues that the insulation of academic disciplines allowed outdated presumptions about Nazi micromanagement of the arts to persist. German exile experiences in the 1930s first inspired these notions, and they gained currency during the occupation of Germany (as careers and trends from the Third Reich continued despite implications of the “Zero Hour”) and throughout the Cold War (as direct comparisons of Nazi and Soviet repression gained momentum). The first histories of Nazi arts, which appeared in the late 1940s, reflected these immediate concerns, but over the next decades, arts scholarship failed to benefit from debates that problematized concepts of totalitarianism, intentionalism, and fascism. They also adhered to explicit definitions of modernism that sustained a narrative of Nazi antimodernism comparable to that of Stalin. The end of the Cold War spawned new comparisons between Nazi Germany and East Germany, but recent considerations of popular culture, economics, and global conditions in the 1930s and 1940s can offer a deeper understanding of the similarities and differences between culture in Nazi Germany and the rest of the industrial world.